Ashutosh Poudel is a PhD student in Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. His research lies in public economics and applied microeconomics, with a focus on U.S. food assistance programs such as SNAP, WIC, and the National School Lunch Program. He is interested in understanding how these programs affect household food spending, program participation, and child health. His current work examines universal free school meals. He is also interested in expanding his industrial organization toolkit to better study how program design, market structure, and service delivery shape the effectiveness of public policies.